re: WESTWORLD Seasn 4 *season long discussion thread*

There are a few humans left in the show but it was hinted that they would soon die out which is kind of open ended. The storylines are connected linearly and all the characters have history with one another. The inconsistencies stem from the plot being totally redirected and the constant role reversals of the characters and that leaves these big holes in the story and the motivations of the characters. I think the reset is an attempt to get the show back on track. From what I’ve read there’s been some shakeup with bosses at HBO so there’s hope for it just based on its story’s potential, strong actors and characters. I’ve been on the fence about bailing but every time a new season starts they seem to have good ideas but haven’t been able to follow through during the seasons. It wants to be a really good to great show, certain people in charge just need to get out of its way.

So as I see it, there are two main ways you can interpret the S4 finale:

1. Dolores has been running a simulation all along. Nothing that happened in the first 4 seasons was “real,” it was just one iteration of the simulation (with Bernard’s time in the Sublime being a sim within a sim).

2. Everything was real, including the impending extinction of humanity. Dolores is now allowing humanity to “live on” in the sense that she has brought them into the sublime. Hence the high stakes - if they prove to be destructive there, they could wipe out all that’s left.

Honestly, I think #1 is a cop out. #2 is actually a pretty elegant ending for the series IMHO. Humanity basically transcends in digital form, living beyond our physical extinction. But Bernard’s “one more time around the loop” comment leaves me skeptical.

I suspect they left it ambiguous because they don’t know whether they are getting renewed. It’s unfortunate because I think they could have nailed a series ending if they committed to it.

It seemed like an ending to me. Maybe all of the dead humans get revived as machines??? I don't know. If they do have another season who will be the villain?

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I suspect they left it ambiguous because they don’t know whether they are getting renewed. It’s unfortunate because I think they could have nailed a series ending if they committed to it.

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i kinda viewed (maybe optimistically) it as tilting to suggesting a season following it, but i cant really argue about the ambiguity point.

it could be more about the robots becoming truly sentient breaking away from the code. back to the awakening of the mind stuff, and coming to consciousness.
idk theres still some people who had to have survived at least, i mean shite C+girlfriend made it out alive, some other rugged individuals had to have held out and survived the purge

Where does that season 2 end scene with William come into play then? Wasn’t that even further in the future than what we watched in Season 4?

After this season I'm going back and watching the whole thing again. Just finished Episode 1... holy cow, so much foreshadowing for even season 4

Christina was part of the operating system for the cities. Her job was to write the narratives for the humans. However, she was sorta depressed, schizophrenic, and lonely in this job so she created friends for her to talk to. Christina was essentially Delores with all of her innocence and knowledge of human behavior but with her park memories repressed.

Now, Christina has been uploaded to the sublime. It appears that she will be running a sort of simulation to see if she can “save” William from becoming the Man in Black, which I guess is seen as the moment that triggered man/host-kind’s inevitable path to physical extinction. If she can “save” William, then the surviving outliers may also be savable. If the humans can be saved, then the hosts, who were built in their image, likewise could be saved.

To me, it seems like a classic time travel story meets the plot of Spiderman: No Way Home. Imagine thinking that WWII was the motivating event that set off a chain reaction that eventually destroyed the world. So, you travel back in time and meet Hitler as a young person. Rather than simply killing Hitler (which causes someone else to take his place), you set out to “cure” Hitler by changing some event in his life that seemed to have triggered him down the dark path towards being a racist, power-hungry, tyrannical mass murderer. Instead, resulting in him maturing into a respectful adult with none of Hitler’s evil ambitions. He might still become a political leader, but he doesn’t have any of the racial/ethnic beliefs the Nazis had or bold desires to conquer the world.

Could it work? Probably not, but it’s an interesting concept for a series.

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but was Christina in the sublime the entire time?

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No. You see that her host ball was installed in the computer inside Hale’s Tower. Then, when her ball is hooked up to the computer at the dam, we see her basically come back online, presumably in the Sublime.

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guess I completely missed this part

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It wasn’t overtly stated, but it appeared to me that Christina recreated Westworld within the Sublime in the scene right before William steps off the train. That was my interpretation of the scene, but it could just be that she was creating the life she wanted, which in Sweetwater with Teddy.

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Now Delores with her endless data, can basically restart life.

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Yep.